Village Bistro Offers Northeast Italian Fare

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Village Bistro, 23718 Bothell-Everett Highway, Suite E, Bothell. Open for lunch Monday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.; open for dinner Thursday through Saturday, 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. Beer and wine, major cards. 488-1486. -----------------------------------------------------------------

Does North Bothell really need another Italian restaurant, especially with the recent addition of Grazie, the year-long success of The Red Tomato, not to mention a popular and ever-enduring old war-horse like Mia Roma? Do the folks in B-town need another pasta joint?

Well, if the spot is the Village Bistro, the answer is yes, because it brings diversity to the area's mix of Italian restaurants.

Owners Amedeo Cocco and Franco Tesorieri hail from the northeastern part of Italy, where sauces are not like the heavy reds of central and southern Italy or the light creams and oils of the north. Certainly there are recognizable names such as fettuccine, gnocchi and tortellini, all of which are made fresh daily. But it's the sauces that are unlike what you may have had before.

Fettuccine con ragout Bolognese ($5.75 on the lunch menu) is one in particular. The flat wide noodle is dressed, not drenched, with a delicately seasoned mixture of beef and pork. What stands is the pasta with accents. If you like your noodle swimming in a wet sauce, this is not for you.

Try instead the fettuccine con funghi ($5.75 at lunch). A generous serving of forest mushrooms is blended with garlic, vegetables, cream and a little tomato. The first flavor that comes through is the mushroom, which is complemented, not overwhelmed, by the garlic and other vegetables.

The Village offers soups made daily ($1.75 a cup, $2.45 a bowl). The bean soups are especially good.

Also on the lunch menu is a wide selection of sandwiches and panini the Italian meat, fish and cheese concoctions served on long wedges of thin, herbed piadina bread. The viserba ($4.95) - avocado, tomato, lettuce, fontina cheese and celery - is a light delicious choice. Piadina bread is also offered as an appetizer spread with a selection of brie, avocado and a very tasty chopped olive spread.

Dinner has selections of its own. The chicken Marsala ($12.95) offers chicken, small chopped and roasted potatoes and mushrooms in a brown, Marsala-accented sauce. It is not a sweet offering, if that's what you expect from the wine, and the meat could have been a little better chosen. Unboned thigh meat is fine, but the rib section from a quartered back and breast was a little lacking.

The fettuccine asparagus ($8.95) had wonderful flavor with a sauce made from the bright green stalks and dressed with the tips. There could have been more of it. Once the bountiful fresh noodle was tossed, the sauce all but disappeared.

Village Bistro has only been open since April and recently began serving dinner. It's a little hard to find, tucked away in the sprawling Country Village shopping center, but it's worth looking for. It's a nice alternative to pizza and spaghetti.